Teaching Matthew: Unlocking the Gospel of Matthew for the Bible Teacher (Teaching the Bible)

Top Highlights

“That is one of the great purposes of the Sermon on the Mount; not to show us that here is a law which, if we fulfil, will bring us the kingdom of heaven as a reward, but that we cannot for one moment live up to this standard.” (Page 36)

“At the very beginning of Christ’s ministry, through the forerunner’s preaching, God is confronting Israel with the demands of their king.” (Page 16)

“For a modern, western reader the start of the book could hardly be more unappetising. The first sixteen verses seem to us to be an almost endless list of names, which we cheerfully skip, to move on to the much more promising material of the birth narratives. Matthew, however, has a key purpose. In tracing the genealogy of Jesus from Abraham he establishes that he was a true Jew, and in taking his line through Judah to David, he is making a claim that the subject of the book stands in the royal line, perhaps even has a claim to the throne of David. We are alerted to claims about Jesus Christ being a true Israelite and being the Davidic king from the very start of the book.” (Pages 11–12)

“Not surprisingly then, in chapter 4, we find Jesus, as the true representative of Israel, facing the same temptations which Israel as a nation had faced in the wilderness, but coming through victoriously, where they had failed.” (Page 17)

“Matthew is really saying that we can only understand the person who is the subject of his book, if we take into account all that has preceded him.” (Page 12)